Dancing With The Universe!

This meditation is about pausing! Pausing the incessant struggle between the past and future and tuning into the pace of nature, of our breath and body.

We explore how our minds tend to run at a faster pace than whatever is around us and it ends up bringing us a lot of anxiety and stress. We also explore the reasons we do it and how to stop it.

This meditation is an attempt at recognizing that this "pause" is always available to us where we can tune into the natural rhythm and dance with the universe!

Transcript

Let's close our eyes and let's become aware of this simple fact that we are breathing.

We are alive.

As the week is beginning.

It's quite natural that we are in a hustle mode.

We are in a rush.

Some of us are in a rush to catch up on things.

Some of us are in a rush to be done with this week and reach Friday or Saturday.

Going through things,

Being preoccupied,

Predetermined,

Premeditated,

Makes us,

Gives us this illusion that time is moving faster.

And we are going to reach a place on Saturday where we are free.

We can be relaxed.

But what if we took a step back right now and just paused,

Paused this rush and tuned ourselves to whatever is happening at its own natural pace and everything except our minds are moving at a rhythmic natural pace.

Our breath is moving in a natural pace.

The birds,

The earth,

The time,

Everything is moving in a natural pace except our minds.

We are rushing,

Trying to get somewhere.

It's like someone once said that once you,

When you are trying to reach a,

Trying to get on a train,

We rush.

And because we get in this habit of rushing,

Even after we are on the train,

We keep rushing.

We keep moving as if the train is going to move faster.

But we like this illusion of control.

That if I'm not restless,

If I'm not rushing,

If I'm not thinking about a problem,

It's not going to get solved.

Things are not going to change.

But is this rushing necessary?

Ask yourself.

Not as a philosophical question,

But right now as an experiential question,

As we are pausing,

Ask yourself,

Is this running necessary?

And if we zoomed in a little bit and trying to understand what this running even means,

And what are we even running behind?

What are we trying to catch?

We're trying to catch a feeling of stability,

Feeling of control.

But by definition,

Every feeling changes.

So trying to chase something that is unstable to begin with,

In order to find stability,

Is destined to be doomed.

But what if we realize that we are stable now?

When we move,

When our minds move at the same pace,

Like everything else is moving,

Because we are a part of everything else.

Summer is not going to rush through to reach winter.

It's going to take its time.

You can't force sun to go down faster.

It's going to take its time.

Whatever we are working on,

Whatever we are doing,

Planning to do,

It's going to take its time.

And it is taking its time,

Except this illusion that we can control the pace.

And in the end,

We are the ones who end up feeling anxious,

Rushed,

More importantly,

Depleted,

Frustrated,

Exhausted.

In a little louder cases,

Depressed,

Sad,

Hopeless.

What is wrong right now?

Ask yourself.

Why is it such a terrible place to be in?

Why are we trying to leave this place and go somewhere else sooner?

The beauty of this human experience is to be able to feel all the emotions,

To be able to do different kind of activities.

So even if we are going through something difficult right now,

Instead of trying to rush through it,

Because just because we want it to rush through,

It's not going to rush through.

Why can't we embrace it?

We are not inviting it.

It's already here,

If it is already here.

Can we just embrace it?

And in most cases,

It's a pretty ordinary day for most of us.

So ask yourself,

What is wrong right now?

What is wrong in this moment,

In this place?

What am I rushing toward?

What's the rush?

And once we come here,

We can confirm for ourselves that everything else is moving just at its own pace.

Our breath,

Our heartbeat,

The birds,

The sound of the vehicles,

The wind gushing through the trees.

It's a confirmation every time we tune to it that nature is moving just fine.

We are the ones rushing in our own minds.

No matter how we learned this habit,

The point is we have a choice right now to run.

Or to just be.

Dance with it right now,

Whatever that it is,

Dance with it.

Any promise that you are going to get something after or later in the future is a false promise.

Whatever worth having is worth having even now.

And see if you can find that you already have it.

This pause,

This rhythm,

This dance.

Suddenly what you'll notice is your body starts relaxing.

Your heartbeat slows down.

Your breathing slows down.

Just by tuning into the natural rhythm.

Some workplaces love firefighting.

Panic is the modus operandi.

That's the mode to operate in.

That's when we experience stress and the subsequent triumph.

But what's intelligent in that?

The answer would be to avoid the firefighting.

To avoid the stress,

To avoid the panic.

And operate from this relaxed state of mind and body.

More and more so that panic never gets a chance to set.

Or maybe let me correct myself.

Self-inflicted panic sets less and less.

Life already has moments for us.

Nature already has moments where we have to dance a little faster.

The rhythm is faster.

But we don't want to inflict that upon ourselves all the time.

What my experience has been is the more relaxed I am,

The fewer mistakes I make.

And lesser is the probability of hitting panic.

Forgetting something is lower when you're relaxed.

You know,

In some cultures there is a tradition they don't set alarms.

What they do is they whisper to their pillow to wake them up at a certain time in the morning.

And it works.

It works like magic.

It's not that the pillow that wakes you up.

It's just that your subconscious wakes you up.

But we are not listening when we are rushing.

When the conscious becomes blurred,

We can't see what's right in front of us.

Forget about seeing and listening to what is deep,

What is not even visible.

And it all starts with this pause,

This tuning into whatever is running this universe.

And seeing the futility,

To be honest,

The futility of running in our minds.

Because the moment we see that rushing in our mind is not going to take us anywhere faster,

The innate intelligence can kick in.

But we have to see it first.

I know people who will start stressing out about something that is going to happen five days from now.

And this is a common occurrence.

Let's say you're hosting a few friends for dinner.

You can either approach this celebration from a cool,

Calm place by doing what is necessary,

Either preparing the list of what needs to be bought,

What needs to be cooked at what time,

And then doing it simply without this rushed attitude.

Or you could stress yourself out,

Make a big deal about it.

And what ends up happening,

Because this ordeal of our mental state is so unbearable,

We tend to minimize celebrations by only doing them once a quarter,

Because that's all our body and mind can handle.

Not in terms of the actual work,

But in terms of the stress and the anxiety that is involved in the process.

The build-up is always the worst part of the process.

The anxiety of cleaning up is always the worst part of the process.

The process is the simplest part.

The actual thing is the simplest part.

But the other two,

If we come from a place of wisdom,

Understanding,

Clarity,

What we'll realize is things don't need to be so hyper.

They can be done in a relaxed manner as well.

That doesn't mean you're doing things slow.

Relaxed is a state of mind,

Not a state of effort.

We can be relaxed like a figure skater.

She's relaxed,

And the only way her routine is going to be beautiful is if she is relaxed.

But that does not mean she is slacking off on the efforts.

And once we realize this simple insight,

We can start withdrawing from the future and come back to what is needed now,

Using the simple practice like we are doing right now.

So just tune into our surroundings,

Our breath,

Our body,

And to see that that is the natural pace.

This is the natural pace.

Whatever is flashing in front of your eyes right now in terms of insight is up for grabs all the time.

You have not been fitted with a new technology just for this session.

Now,

This insight mechanism is pre-installed.

We just have to tune into it.

It only works when we are relaxed,

When we are open,

Available,

Present.

Science might call this a flow state.

Spirituality might call it a meditative state.

Even if you don't call it by any name,

It still remains profound,

Simple,

Accessible to all of us.

That's the place I'm speaking from with you right now.

And the brilliance of this is the more I speak from that place,

The more we go to that place together.

So someone else is trying to rush us.

We don't have to leave this place.

We don't have to catch on.

They are fire.

I remember someone telling me that in the military,

They have a rule that slow is smooth and smooth is fast.

You'll be surprised how much more bandwidth you will have throughout the day if you operate from this place,

Operate from this natural place,

Your place.

You're not redoing things,

Re-reading,

Postponing.

This dance is very nourishing.

It's fun.

The body is relaxed.

The mind is relaxed.

The quality of our life is instantly upgraded with this attitude.

In all areas.

Thank you.